Ron Finley: A guerilla gardener in South Central LA

Ron Finley is a self-proclaimed guerilla gardener from Los Angeles who took the initiative and went about making his neighborhood a better, healthier place to live by converting vacant lots in the “food desert” of South Los Angeles (formerly known as South Central Los Angeles) into vegetable gardens. Ron truly is an epitome of “Be the change that you wish to see in the world.” taking steps as tiny as planting a tomato plant in order to gradually and steadily improve his environment and create a sustainable, healthy community.

In 2013 he held a talk about his work at the TED conference. Not only is he inspiring, passionate and bursting with energy but he’s quite funny as well so the talk is very much worth watching:

Ron Finley plants vegetable gardens in South Central LA — in abandoned lots, traffic medians, along the curbs. Why? For fun, for defiance, for beauty and to offer some alternative to fast food in a community where “the drive-thrus are killing more people than the drive-bys.”